Ace - Endurance Horse

When I first met Ace, on November 27, 2012, his owner, Sharon, had been trimming him for two years. His feet looked good but he was ouchy on hard ground or the tiniest pebbles. Sharon told me that it was almost impossible to keep boots on him because he would overreach and rip them off.

Sharon, in her own words:

"I am writing this to thank Maureen for doing the right barefoot trim on my horse. I have been doing endurance racing 10 years. I only do 25 miles and sometimes I will do a 50 mile. I was told I could not do a race without shoes. So I let the blacksmith put shoes on Ace, well that didn't work, always over reaching and pulling a shoe off so then you had to wait for the blacksmith to come back out. Then we tried the boots, well 5 pairs of boots later, and may I say I only have 1 of each pair, he would pull one off and we lost it in the woods. So I knew there was a better way and started to google barefoot trimming on the web.

Thank God I found Maureen. I called her and what a great person to talk to, very knowledgeable on horses feet. I had seen other videos on barefoot trimming but when I did it their way Ace was still tender footed. The first time Maureen came and trimmed Ace's feet he was walking 60% better, that was in Nov 2012. I told her I had a race coming up April 20, 2013 and she said he would be ready to do it barefoot. Well I wanted to see this. She trimmed him 2 more times, then 2 weeks before the race. Well let me tell you I am one happy camper.

On April 20 he was ready, there were 51 horse in the 25 miler at Chicken Chase in Henryville IN, our first race with no boots or shoes. Barfooted. . . . we came in 12th out of 51 riders. You would have thought he had feet of steel. At the vet check he got all A's and B's. The vet commented on him being barefoot because there was about 5 miles of rock we had to run on as well as about 4 miles of road we had to trot or canter on. No slipping on concrete with no shoes.

My friend and his 2 horses were barefooted too. One was pulled [because the] rider got hurt, but the horse's feet were great. Gregg's horse Spice got 13th and she and Ace ran the race together. Maureen oversees his horses too.

I will tell you the most important thing about going barefooted. DO NOT TRIM THE FROG OR HEEL, horses have to have a good frog and a heel. Guess who told me that. Maureen. She knows her horses. All I can do is to thank her and ask horse owners to try barefoot trimming on your horse, he will thank you for it.

Charlie the pasture pet [who lives with Ace] also gets her feet done by Maureen. The mare could not even walk right, now she trots around and plays - no more pain."